Current Poley tower. All photos supplied by Andre Belterman, unless stated otherwise. Andre manned the current tower for 4 years from 1994 -1998

Poley tower is one of 4 Melbourne Water towers. It is situated in
the O'Shannassy water Catchment, approx 100km east of Melbourne.
Its viewing area contains most of the O'Shannassy, Upper Yarra,
Maroondah and smaller tributaries (Armstrong, McMahons and
Starvation Creek) catchments. The original Poley Tower was a tall
tree on Mt. Ritchie. The towerman would go up for a look, then
travel around for a while to look at various vantage points, and
return to the tree for another look. This process would be
repeated a few times per day. A steel tower (6km to the east)
replaced the tree in 1964. The tower was 27m (90') high and was in
operation until 1992, when it was replaced because of loss of
viewing area due to tree growth. The current tower was erected
3km to the west, on Cold Water Hill. It stands 35m (115')
tall and now covers also a greater area of State Forest, public
and private land. After it's completion, it was discovered that the
lightning protection system was insufficient and work was undertaken
to rectify the problem.
In 1994, most of the Melbourne Water Catchments became National
Parks but Melbourne Water still has full control over management
of the Catchments and the closed Catchment policy is still in force.
The running costs of the tower are shared with DEPI.
Melbourne is one of the very few cities in the world with a water
supply coming from closed Catchments. This ensures Melbourne of
very good quality drinking water. Some of the Catchments have
been closed to the public since the start of this century and
this results in beautiful Old Growth Forests of mainly Mountain
Ash, (Eucalyptus Regnans).
To protect these forests from devastating bushfires, Melbourne
Water have had their own Towers for fire detection. Early
detection of wild-fires is vital for Melbourne Water. A wild-fire
effects the harvest of water for many many years. In the first
few years the water yield increases but is polluted and after the
re-growth starts to take of, the water yield drops dramatically
as the young eucalyptus saplings consume all the water they can
get.

Poley tower is registered with the

in the USA.

Please click on thumbnails for enlargements

Remains of 1st Poley Towerin 1970Supplied by Robin Fisher

Remains of 1st Poley Towerin 2002

History rotting away1st Poley Towerin 2002

Remains of ladder1st Poley Towerin 2002

Inside 2nd Poley TowerSupplied byRobin Fisher

2nd Poley TowerBirdseye viewSupplied byRobin Fisher

2nd Poley Towerin snow

Mapboard and old scopeinside currentPoley tower

Old scope inside currentPoley tower

Thumbnails below are of the dismantling of the second Poley tower in November 2002.
The tower was sold to a gun club; they will use it to launch clay targets.

Cabin4 tonne

Top section2.5 tonne

2nd section 3.5 tonne

3rd section?? tonne

4th section before dismantling

The tower had a detailed structure inspection in July 2008 and the tower's overall condition is considered to be very good to excellent.

Poley tower was in the path of the devastating Black Saturday (7th Feb 2009). Graeme Seppings reported a smoke sighting not far to the West of him.
It's believed that it was a spot fire from the Murrindindi fire. Graeme evacuated the tower and just as well, because 90% of the O'Shannassy catchment was burnt.
Although the site was burnt over, the tower was inspected after the fires and considered to be structual safe due to the large clearing around the base.

Remains of 1st Poley Towerafter the fire has passed

Clearing around the tower

From the airSupplied by Cameron Padgham

A certified Fire Bunker was installed before the 2012-13 season. The bunker couldn't be burried due to the rocky ground, so rock was placed around the unit.This will be an extra safety measure for the FLO. Melbourne Water hopes that the FLO will never find the need to use it.

We now have 2 photos on record claiming to be the original Poley tower, which was located on Mt Ritchie. As you can see, the trees look very different.We are still researching which one is the correct one or if there were in fact 2 tree towers on Mt Ritchie. Please contact us if you can help.The first photo has hoops around the ladder and the remains that are still on site, still have a few hoops around the ladder. These are visible in some photos above.The 1st photo (with the hoops) was supplied via Graeme Seppings. The other photo, taken in 1962, was supplied by the Melbourne Walking Cub via Robin Baileyand used with permission.